A Boot Partition?

[halfpower]

I have been told that my computer will boot faster if I have a minimally sized boot partition that has the OS installed on it. I have been told to put my data files on another partition or even better yet on an entirely different hard drive. My question is, Where do I install my program files? Do I put them on the boot partition? or do I make a third partition specifically for program files? I could just get two 160GB hard drives and break the first one down into about 8 partitions and then keep the second one as a single 160GB partition and use it to store data files. What do you think? Should I make 2, 3 or 9 partitions? some other number? This will be a home PC but it must also be adequate for recording, processing, mixing, mastering, etc. the highest quality audio

PS... I'm assuming two things.

1) an E-mu 1212M sound card is capable of recording pro studio quality audio.
2)I'm only recording one or at the most 3 or 4 tracks at one time.

Thanks!

halfpower

 

[Dragonbate]

I've seen LOTS of opinions on this. The only optimization scheme that I understand works is to have your cache on a seperate drive (not partition) from your OS. That said, I usually have one ~10 GB partition for my OS, a ~20 GB partiton for my program files (I don't do too many big games at one time) and the rest for data. I also seperate a few parttions on the data drive for organization purposes. Total I have on my main rig is around 170 GB but I also have a storage server with another ~160 gb.

 

[Jexx]

Your best bet is to have a single disk/partition for windows and program files. Then a second disk/partition for your personal files. One of the bigest advantages of this is that you can trash your 'boot' disk and still have your files. Also if the personal area is a Disk rather than a patition on the first disk you will have an increased access time on the files.

Multiple partitions on the same disk have the problem that the disk gets slower as it reads towards the end, so a second partition will have a slower speed than the first.

2 160GB drives seems a bit excesive, I use a 80GB drive as boot and have almost 40GB free. I use a RAID for my personal files which is striped for performance (2x200GB dirves). This setup gives optimum performance for video and audio editing.

 

[Nothinman]

Should I make 2, 3 or 9 partitions?

As few as possible. Using lots of partitions just complicates things when one of them fills up.

This will be a home PC but it must also be adequate for recording, processing, mixing, mastering, etc. the highest quality audio

If you need to ensure no latency for recording and editing get a dedicated drive(s) for the audio.

 

[doan]

Originally posted by: Jexx
Your best bet is to have a single disk/partition for windows and program files. Then a second disk/partition for your personal files. One of the bigest advantages of this is that you can trash your 'boot' disk and still have your files. Also if the personal area is a Disk rather than a patition on the first disk you will have an increased access time on the files.

Multiple partitions on the same disk have the problem that the disk gets slower as it reads towards the end, so a second partition will have a slower speed than the first.

2 160GB drives seems a bit excesive, I use a 80GB drive as boot and have almost 40GB free. I use a RAID for my personal files which is striped for performance (2x200GB dirves). This setup gives optimum performance for video and audio editing.

Ditto

 

[halfpower]

Originally posted by: Jexx2 160GB drives seems a bit excesive, I use a 80GB drive as boot and have almost 40GB free. I use a RAID for my personal files which is striped for performance (2x200GB dirves). This setup gives optimum performance for video and audio editing.

I'm estimating that one song will occupy 1GB of disk space. If I go completely hog-wild I might put down 50 songs in a few months time along with some data files of significant size. The needed space is very unpredictable.

As for program files I cannot fathom 160GB of program files. I'm sure that in theory it is at least possible.

At the moment it appears as if I should have two drives, each with one partition. One 80GB for the OS and other program files, and another for data files. On the other had disk space is so cheap these days that two 160GB drives would only coast an extra $20-$30 USD extra.

 

[Netopia]

I usually have four partitions (all are primary):

First is for OS and all IMPORTANT software and is usually ~5-6GB

Second is FAT32 of about ~5-6GB for use by Ghost in creating and image of that first partition

Third is for all my data and games and junk

Forth is for my swap file, not so much for performance (especially since it's at the slowest part of the drive) but to keep it from using up room on the first partition or helping to fragment the second. I then use TweakUI to make that drive not displayed in "My Computer".

Joe

 

[halfpower]

I've now put my computer together and loaded a few items. I've got two partitions, a 40GB for Windows and programs files and a 110GB for data. How to I tell if the OS partition is at the front or the back? How much performance increase would I see if I put Windows on its own 5-6GB partition?

 

[Peter007]

Netopia's idea isn't bad

However, newer version of GHOST can WRITE to NTFS Partition directly;
so its wiser to make Partition D:\ NTFS for security and smaller cluster size for more optimal storage.

I prefer 3 Partition:
C:\ OS (very small around 2g) for multiple GHOST Backup
D:\ DATA, APPS, and GHOST.IMAGE Backup
E:\ Video, Anime, Music, Games

Before NTFS and Win2000, I used to have 6-8 partition just to keep the drive's cluster size under control.
Now I can have a 160G HD under NTFS yet still retain a cluster size of 4K......Amazing

 

[Jon855]

Originally posted by: halfpower

Originally posted by: Jexx2 160GB drives seems a bit excesive, I use a 80GB drive as boot and have almost 40GB free. I use a RAID for my personal files which is striped for performance (2x200GB dirves). This setup gives optimum performance for video and audio editing.

I'm estimating that one song will occupy 1GB of disk space. If I go completely hog-wild I might put down 50 songs in a few months time along with some data files of significant size. The needed space is very unpredictable.

As for program files I cannot fathom 160GB of program files. I'm sure that in theory it is at least possible.

At the moment it appears as if I should have two drives, each with one partition. One 80GB for the OS and other program files, and another for data files. On the other had disk space is so cheap these days that two 160GB drives would only coast an extra $20-$30 USD extra.

TELL me what song takes up a gig of space?

 

[halfpower]

One 4.5 minute mono track of 24bit audio at 96KHz will take up roughly 120MB. If the song contains ten tracks then that 1200MB. If it contains 60 tracks then it's 7GB. 60 tracks at 24bit/192KHz would be 14GB. A lot of people prefer to record at 24bit/48KHz or 24bit/44.1KHz.

 

[KoolDrew]

As Nothinman said it is best to have as few as possible.

 

[CalvinHobbs]

i somewhere read on AT that people make a first partition of 4gb to install windows then a second partition for the program files, so that the first partition contains only registry entries of the programs installed, then they backup the first partition, so when they back-up their programs are not lost

 

[Zucarita9000]

Umm... actually, the best setup would consist of three hard drives (wich is what I use now)

I have Windows and all my software apps in the first hdd, my documents and personal stuff on the 2nd one the third hdd, I placed the Windows page file, Photoshop temp and overflow.

My computer is actually a lot faster now that the page file resides on a separate hard drive. I have this setup as a 12GB partition at the beginning of the drive, wich happens to be the faster one.

Edit: After adding 1GB of RAM (2GB total) my page file is hardly being used.

 

[halfpower]

Okay, I'll put my WinXP on one partition, but what about my program files? Some program files like Acrobat Reader are small. Others like EmulatorX take a few gigs. Will Acrobat load faster if it is on the boot partition? Or will it load just as fast on a data partition since all its registry information is on the boot partition anyway?

-halfpower